2014 tennis style overview: How Venus Williams made her mark on sports fashion with her EleVen brand

Venus Williams is definitely not be the only women’s tennis player who likes to get creative with clothes, but she’s the only one with a university degree in the industry (in December 2007 she received her associate degree in Fashion Design from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale) who also has her own registered clothing brand. Let’s see how the winner of a total of 22 Grand Slam titles worked her EleVen by Venus apparel throughout 2014.

I have followed the evolution of EleVen since the company’s launch and in my opinion the brand has stayed on the positive course it took back in 2012. The early days of EleVen were quite bleak and uninspiring (have a look at my overviews of Venus’ 2008 and 2009 styles to see what I’m talking about), then from outfits lacking character Venus adopted too much character in 2010 and 2011, wearing clothes that didn’t just border with tacky, they were tacky, on top of bringing wardrobe malfunctions during matches, while in 2012 Venus found that happy middle ground between edgy and classic and has kept that standard ever since.

Have a look at Venus’ dresses from the last two years and tell me if you agree with what I said above:

Venus loves prints and has worn all sorts of patterns — from tie-dyes and abstracts, to all kinds of flowers and geometric shapes. As you can see, the 2014 season was no different.

She’s also no stranger to stripes and I adore the subtle yellow tank she sported with a simple black skort in Charleston – the EleVen Summer Over Ruled Tank.

The American also often combined prints with solids, as you can see in her Rome outfits – the colorful EleVen Aurora Hail Mary Strap Tank paired with a teal skort, and a reverse combination of a teal EleVen Aurora Hail Mary Strap Tank and a print skort.

But even though prints and cute racer backs define EleVen, at least in my mind, my absolute favorite Venus’ design from 2014 was her white Wimbledon dress. This dress was also my favorite dress of Wimbledon 2014 as a whole, proving that you don’t need bold colors, lace, fringe, or whatever to stand out. This dress shines unobtrusively, with wonderful shoulder mesh inserts bringing just enough detail to the cap-sleeve design with a single front pleat.

Above you can see Venus wearing the EleVen Fall Herringbone Back Court Dress featuring color-blocking panels at upper back and sides.

There were also tanks in the same print, such as the EleVen Fall Herringbone Flexion Tank and the EleVen Fall Herringbone Service Game Print Tank.

In Cincinnati Venus wore a dark grey version of the EleVen Fall Herringbone Back Court Dress.

Venus’ 2014 US Open dress belongs to the Vintage Floral Group. I love the cute back straps and the keyhole opening, although the print is not my favorite. This dress is called the EleVen Vintage Closed Grip Print Dress.

8 thoughts on “2014 tennis style overview: How Venus Williams made her mark on sports fashion with her EleVen brand”

I liked all the clothing from Eleven this season but Marija you are right that the Wimbledon dress was the best! It played well within the rules but was very elegant in a modern, space age kind of way. Bravo Venus!

I think venus’s wimbledon dress def topped every other brands this year. That outfit was so simple and so elegant :D. I also like her other outfits but i feel like we have seen too many prints on venus

Sabey, right, timeless elegance, nothing extravagant, but still modern and innovative.

Steven Edell, I’ve rechecked and she’s won 13 doubles, 2 mixed doubles, 7 singles Grand Slam titles, which is a total of 22, just as I wrote.

Sru, it’s definitely among the best dresses of the year. I would give my top spot to some colorful Adidas dress, but this white piece is definitely a strong competition and among other white outfits of the season it’s definitely the best. Also, I agree on the prints, they can be both improved and used a bit less.